


put your lips close to mine (as long as they don't touch)

by iliveinfantasies



Series: The Worst Witch 2018 Winter Fluff Event [10]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hicsqueak, Other, ww2018winterfluffevent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 06:51:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveinfantasies/pseuds/iliveinfantasies
Summary: They huddled together in the evenings, pouring over the work, pressing parts of themselves together in bits and pieces as the night wore on.Their arms, when one of them leaned over to point out a mistake on the other’s parchment.Their knees, when they pressed into each other’s spaces to look at the same page.Their hands, when Pippa grabbed Hecate’s, icy with the coolness of the evening, and pressed it to her own warm cheek.And their lips, as the stars began to hang low in the sky, and all reason disappeared to the vastness of themselves; far too raw in the late hour, with the feeling of their mouths pressed to each other’s skin.Hecate had said nothing about it the next day, nor had Pippa; in fact, Hecate hadn’t said much of anything, at, all, for the entirety of the day after.But that evening, the knock had reverberated on Pippa’s door, echoing through the silence, sending sound waves through the air like shivers down her spine.And they found themselves in each other’s space, once again.-------Prompt: Remote CabinPairing: Hicsqueak





	put your lips close to mine (as long as they don't touch)

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mentions of physical abuse
> 
> So a few things about this piece.
> 
> I've been toying, for a while, with the idea of writing a piece that had Hecate and Pippa actually kind of together as teenagers. Like they had hushed kisses in the dark, and all the unknowing of first, new love. Because it's something I could have seen happening, and Hecate just NOT talking about. Not actual dating, of course, because that wouldn't happen. Because Hecate. Just, you know. What goes along with it.
> 
> I also want to make it clear that at NO POINT am I insinuating that underage teenage Pippa and Hecate are having sex. It's kissing, and tentative touches, and fingers through hair, and other normal, teenage romance stuff. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
> 
>  
> 
> SO, that said, here we are, with another part of this thing here.
> 
> I'm so behind, but the real world has just been so busy, that I'm trying to focus on doing half of the prompts for this challenge. So there we are.
> 
> I hope y'all like this one. It was several days in the making, that I've been trying to post this, but just haven't been able to, so I hope it turned out!
> 
> THanks for reading the other, and for the comments--I truly, truly appreciate them! They make my day!

Their fourth year at Amulet’s was the year that the world crumpled.

They had started the year rather normally, if a bit more intent on their studies than ever before. Hecate and Pippa were their same selves, in many ways; stubborn, inseparable, over the top in their need to succeed. This was the time, as Hecate pointed out, that Witching Colleges began to truly look at students, after all.

“Our marks, Pippa,” she’d say, voice haughty and rough, “Are going to make us this year.”

And Pippa would roll her eyes, and brush a lock of hair out of Hecate’s face, and press a careful kiss to her cheek. “I know, I know, Hiccup,” she’d say, laughter edging itself between the words. “Let’s go study, already.”

And that was how they found themselves tucked up into Pippa’s rooms every evening, pouring over parchment, drawing long conclusions from paragraphs written in half-legible fonts.

They huddled together in the evenings, pouring over the work, pressing parts of themselves together in bits and pieces as the night wore on.

Their arms, when one of them leaned over to point out a mistake on the other’s parchment.

Their knees, when they pressed into each other’s spaces to look at the same page.

Their hands, when Pippa grabbed Hecate’s, icy with the coolness of the evening, and pressed it to her own warm cheek.

And their lips, as the stars began to hang low in the sky, and all reason disappeared to the vastness of themselves; far too raw in the late hour, with the feeling of their mouths pressed to each other’s skin.

Hecate had said nothing about it the next day, nor had Pippa; in fact, Hecate hadn’t said much of anything, at, all, for the entirety of the day after.

But that evening, the knock had reverberated on Pippa’s door, echoing through the silence, sending sound waves through the air like shivers down her spine.

And they found themselves in each other’s space, once again.

And Pippa had known, really, that Hecate would never have given over that easily. That she’d never have put that much of herself out there, never truly acknowledged what it was that they were, that they did, outside of the safe, subtle silence of the dark.

But she didn’t care to point it out, either, lest she break something.

So they remained as they had always been during the day: friends, stoically rivalling each other in every class, Pippa’s laugh and Hecate’s curt, but amused, responses.

And in the evenings, they carried on in this new way: arms, hands, knees, shoulders; a head on a lap, fingers drawn carefully through hair.

And lips, pressed to skin.

It was in this way that Pippa found herself the most alone, once Hecate was finally gone.

* * *

 

When they were fifteen, Hecate found herself invited to Pippa’s parents cabin for the holidays.

“Come  _ on,  _ Hiccup,” Pippa said, coaxingly, her syllables gathering inflection like dew. “It’ll be  _ fun. _ ”

And Hecate hesitated, uncertainty etching its way into her bones, watching Pippa with a slightly wary expression.

Hecate didn’t care much for the holidays, and never had; her own time at home, with her father, was always stilted, and awkward, and bleak. He didn’t believe in the modern “celebrations” of holidays, and always took them as a time for quiet reflection, and careful, practical applications of The Craft. Hecate had made the mistake exactly once, as a child, of asking why they didn’t celebrate Yule like the other witching families. Her father had grown stern, and still, and loomed dangerously over her small figure.  _ We are an old magical family, Hecate, _ he would say, bitterness building a slow-acting poison around the edges of his words, their sharpened edges cutting lines into her skin.  _ And you would do to remember that. _ Then, he had struck her, sharply, and had her kneel in front of the ceremonial candles, murmuring chants, until her legs were numb and her shoulders stiff.

And when, in their very first year, Hecate had returned to school with bruises on her knees and welts on her arms, Pippa had said nothing; but from that point onward, Pippa had made it a point to include as much holiday cheer as humanly possible into their time together at school.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed, to end up where they were now: Pippa’s hand clamped tightly over Hecate’s own, an excited sort of half-smile perched on her face, pleading with her to come to Pippa’s parent’s winter cabin in the mountains for the holidays.

But it didn’t make the idea of it any less unsettling.

“I...your parents barely know me, Pip. I--”

Pippa leveled Hecate with a long, stubborn stare that Hecate knew to mean that she’d already lost this argument. 

“My parents are the ones who suggested it in the first place, as I’ve told you,” she said, evenly, her words slow and deliberate and just a little sugar-sweet. “They want you to come.”

Hecate sighed. “You’ve invited me over before, and my father has never let me go in the past.”

“Your father is overseas, this year, Hiccup. It will just be you, all alone, and there’s no way I’m leaving you all alone at Yuletide.”

Hecate didn’t say that the solitude would be a nice change of pace, compared to what she usually contended with.

She didn’t say that the idea of meeting new people made her itch.

She didn’t say that being around Pippa on a day-to-day basis was enough to make her heart feel like it was made of paper, flittering and fluttering around her chest, caught on her ribcage, crumpled just a little bit more with each sharp intake of breath into her lungs.

She didn’t say that what they did at night, what they did in the dark and the vague, barely-there light of the mornings, the delicate kisses over cheekbones and gentle touches on lips, was something too rough and too raw to carry with them outside of school.

That she couldn’t understand it, couldn’t reconcile it, couldn’t continue it, couldn’t stop it if she tried.

That if it stayed inside the confines of Pippa’s bedroom at Amulet’s, she could pretend she was taking part in some sort of fever-dream.

That she wasn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to Pippa.

Hecate could, in fact, write an entire essay out of the things that she didn’t say to Pippa, couldn’t say to Pippa.

But instead, she sighed again, more loudly this time, and swallowed, pressing out the words carefully like glass over her tongue.

“I suppose, then.”

* * *

 

The cabin wasn’t, of course, the first place that Pippa and Hecate fell into each other like waves into the ocean.

But it was the first time it happened so indelicately, in the cool air of the morning and exposed to the light, like an old photograph developing on paper.

The first time Hecate had to actually face the ramifications of what was happening, here, and what she had to do to stop it.

How to save Pippa from someone like her--someone awkward and gangly and far, far too dark, and full of the sorts of spells that people whispered about in shrouded, shadowed corners. Someone whose blood crackled magic like sparks in her veins, who couldn’t always control where those sparks went when her temper took hold, and what they ignited once they got there. 

How to stop holding Pippa back, and let her live her life once more, free of Hecate’s weight.

It had started simply enough. 

Pippa’s parents had come to Amulet’s to pick them up, and they were all to fly over on broomstick together. Hecate was a rather expert flyer, so this, at least, she didn’t anticipate being an issue; rather, it was the navigating of the social niceties, the introductions and smiles and awkward conversation in the air that proved to be difficult.

But Pippa’s parents were friendly, and kind, and remarkably understanding of Pippa’s odd, introverted best friend. And it wasn’t as though they hadn’t met before, in passing, at various school events, jovial waves and pleasant greetings filling the air between them as they passed.

But they had never truly  _ talked _ . And once they got the pleasantries out of the way, and the initial vague, half-prying questions (Hecate suspected Pippa had filled her parents in just enough to let them know that Hecate’s home life wasn’t something she liked to discuss, and Hecate was grateful for it), Hecate found herself falling, once again, into the strange space in her head that demanded silence.

Luckily, Pippa was more than happy to make up for the silence, and the flight over actually ended up passing rather quickly.

After landing, and putting themselves into rooms (“You and Pippa will have to share, dear, I hope that’s okay,”), and three different rounds of after dinner hot cocoa from Pippa’s mum, Hecate finally crawled into bed, exhausted from the flight, and fully ready to fall asleep.

Except. Except.

Except then Pippa was there, and she was all bright pink sparks, and honeysuckle hair, and the softest brown eyes Hecate had ever seen, and Hecate wanted nothing more than to indulge in this moment; to savor the feeling of being here, being _with Pippa,_ _here,_ right now. But in the anxiety of the day she’d forgotten her wide-awake potion, and she found herself, now, slowly, drifting into a slow, heavy sleep.

And as the air cooled, and stilled, and with the warmth of the bed and the fire and the scent of honeysuckle all around her, Hecate swore that the last thing she felt before finally passing out was the soft, soft press of Pippa’s lips against her own.

Hecate woke to find herself being dragged, rather forcefully, out of bed.

“Hiccup! Hiccup, it’s  _ snowing!” _

And Hecate, never having been strong enough to say no to Pippa, ever, dragged herself out of bed, and tucked on a thick robe, and shoved herself out into the snowy air on Pippa’s heels.

The air itself was overly-brisk, even for winter, and laced with the sort of cold that formed crystals on their hands, caught sharply in their lungs.

But Pippa, always Pippa,  _ ever  _ Pippa, didn’t seem mind. And the next thing Hecate knew, she was gasping, drawing in quick, shocked lungfuls of air, as the remnants of a hastily formed snowball slid down her face and cloak.

Hecate spun to see Pippa standing there, pink lips stretched into a wide grin, brown eyes glittering like the snow. Another snowball was forming in her gloved hands, ready and waiting, pulling up particles from the ground on a magical breeze and pulling together to form a perfectly round circle. 

Hecate narrowed her eyes, flicked her wrist, and drew her own ball of snow from the perfectly frosted ground.

It became something of a war, rather quickly, each of them drawing bits of magic through their skin, shoving it into the snow, lobbing snowball after snowball until their hair was soaked and their cloaks dripping and tiny snowflakes formed perfect crystals on their eyelashes.

It was freezing, and Hecate’s lips and fingers and toes were entirely numb, despite the her gloves and heavy boots. But there was a warmth bubbling in her stomach, spreading through her veins, like fire, blazing in her cheeks. 

She was sure-- _ pretty  _ sure,  _ almost  _ sure--that this was what pure happiness felt like.

And it was that giddiness, the freeing, flying feeling that hovered in her chest, that she wanted to blame for what happened next, but she knew, somewhere, tucked away into a far corner at the back of her mind, that it was all her own doing.

Because one moment Pippa was circling her, calling “I’m getting you for that last one, Hiccup!” and the next moment Hecate had tackled her into the snow, landing with a thump in the soft powder, ice already forming icicles on their skin.

Pippa squeaked, her eyes wide, and Hecate moved to lay down next to her and Hecate’s heart was pounding wildly, frantically against her ribcage and then--

And then they were kissing, hands cupping cheeks, freezing, slowly, in the snow.

They pulled apart moments later, foreheads pressed together, and Hecate closed her eyes again the full implication of what she had just done.

“Hiccup--” Pippa whispered, the word breathy against Hecate’s lips, and Hecate stiffened. 

She pressed herself up, shedding clumps of snow, and skuttled backward, shivering and shuttering violently. 

“I’m. Sorry,” she said, the words catching in her throat, and she didn’t let Pippa’s expression register before she transferred back into their room in the cabin.

Pippa, being Pippa, and unable to let anything drop without analyzing it spectacularly, spent the better part of that afternoon attempting to get Hecate to talk about it. And then every subsequent evening after that. 

And Hecate would brush it aside, and change the subject, or just go painfully, stoically silent.

Eventually, Pippa stopped asking.

The rest of their days at the cabin passed by in a strange haze of odd smiles, spiced sugared biscuits, and bright, cracking displays of magic by the fireside.

And, though Hecate hated herself for it most deeply, though she should have maintained some semblance of self control, though she knew exactly what her father would have said about her lack of discipline--small, hurried kisses in the dark.

Pippa’s parents were lovely, wonderful people--kind, and open, and giving, and the unfamiliarity of it put Hecate even more on edge than she already was, and by the time they got back to the castle, she was entirely frayed around the edges.

It was weeks later, when the snow had melted over the fields and they’d started back up at school and spring firmly set its foot down, firmly, that Hecate finally packed up her heart and her broom and her books and flew quickly, finally, away.

* * *

 

It was thirty years later, on the heels of losing her third chess game of the evening, that Pippa suggested the cabin again.

It was the very beginning of holiday break, and Hecate had flown the couple of hours to Pentangle’s for their usual Thursday evening chess match, the edges of a storm forming behind her, frost nipping at her heels.

Things had been...good, tentatively. Better, now, since they had started talking, again.

The first couple of months had been difficult--after that initial meeting at the Spelling Bee, the mirror chats had been quiet, and awkward, and induced the sort of heart pounding anxiety in Hecate that Required Social Gatherings always did. Over time, however, things had settled into a calm sort of peace; their chats had gotten longer, and more frequent; their conversations more sincere. They began to make the flight to each other’s schools, occasionally, and eventually made it up to weekly Thursday evening chess.

After the initial hurdle, Hecate found that it was easy, now, to slip back into a routine with Pippa. And that ease frightened her, a little.

But not enough to make her leave, not again. Not after the last time.

Not after she had looked Pippa in the eye and told her, waveringly, that she left because she hadn’t wanted to hold her back. 

Not after all the half-truths she had already told, now, in the still-fragile beginnings of their relationship.

“I was thinking,” Pippa said, slowly, flicking her fingers to move her last remaining pawn to an unoccupied square, “that...that perhaps, the cabin might be fun. Something to get us both out of the castle, for a time.”

Hecate nearly dropped her tea into her lap.

“Pardon?” she said, and she hoped her voice didn’t give away the anxiety hovering below the surface. Pippa glanced up, a soft smile playing along the edges of her lips.

“The cabin,” she repeated, “for Yuletide. For the holidays.”

Hecate stared back, uncertainly. “Your--” she began, but her mouth caught around the words. “Your...parents, cabin?”

Pippa raised an eyebrow at her, the soft smile slipping into an amused smirk. “Well, I haven’t exactly got a plethora of cabins in my back pocket, Hecate.”

Hecate bit her lip, lightly.

“And what of your parents? Won’t they...won’t you want to be with them? For the holidays?” she asked, carefully, stuffly, almost, flicking another chess piece forward with her fingers. “That’s check,” she added, and Pippa wrinkled her nose.

“Overseas, this year,” Pippa responded, mildly, switching her king out of harm’s way. “It will just be me this time, for Yuletide.” 

Pippa said it quietly, almost glibly, but Hecate blanched a little. Because Pippa’s words--every word she’d ever said, really--still echoed in Hecate’s mind, fresh, and bold, and insistent.  _ Your father is overseas, this year, Hiccup. It will just be you, all alone, and there’s no way I’m leaving you all alone at Yuletide. _

Hecate wondered, briefly, if there was something more to Pippa’s suggestion. With Pippa, there usually was. But it had been so long, and they were so far detached from where they were before, from the memories of those times, that she couldn’t really tell. 

They both said nothing for a long moment. Just sat in a loud silence, sparks flicking into the air, focusing on the pieces sliding across the board’s smooth surface.

Pippa slid her last remaining pawn out of trouble, yet again, and looked up at Hecate.

“It would be a shame for the cabin to go unused, I think, and it might be nice, now that…” 

Pippa trailed off, and though her eyes remained mostly impassive, Hecate could sense the uncertainty there, feel the nervous energy buzzing around her words.

Hecate didn’t quite know how she’d make it through a week of a cabin with Pippa, alone--Pippa’s her parent’s cabin, no less, the very same cabin where…

Hecate swallowed.

She didn’t know how she’d make it through that, exactly. Not when her feelings for Pippa had flooded back, harsh and blistering and all at once, the second she’d seen her at Cackle’s.

But she owed Pippa this much, at least, if not more, and she knew that.

So she forced the corners of her mouth up into the semblance of a smile, and nodded, once, curtly.

“I suppose, then,” she said, the words echoes of a time before, of their prior selves, like the ghost of a smile across Pippa’s skin.

The cabin was simultaneously exactly the same and vastly different from the last time Hecate had been here. The structure was the same: black shutters framing window panes, the warped, leaded glass of the windows overlooking soft peaks of snow. But it was a little more worn, a little more run down, in a way that even the best preservation spells couldn’t quite keep up with. The roof had lost a couple of its shingles, the logs just a bit cracked around the edges of the windows. It was an odd, slightly distorted version of Hecate’s memory of it, and the sight of it as they landed was jarring--odd against the image she had preserved, so carefully, in her own mind.

Hecate’s fingers itched with an inexplicable urge to make it whole again; to gather the energy at her fingertips, run them along the cabin’s surface; murmur spells and incantations until the cracks came together again, smooth and soft and whole, like skin reforming over a wound. To reforge her memory of it, exactly as it had been in her mind, before she had—

Before all this.

But she also  _ didn’t  _ want that, couldn’t; not when it was such a perfect reorientation of them now, older, and just a little bit worn and wary, cracks forming on the surfaces of their skin.

“Come on, Hiccup,” said Pippa, pulling up beside her as they landed. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Every part of this place was a stark reminder of the world they had forged, in the time before; the one that Hecate had torn down with one swift strike, when she’d left.

The same fireplace in the main room, already bright with flames, hungrily lapping at the scorched stones of the hearth; the same side doors leading to bedrooms in the corners, the doors older, now, just a little bit more worn, and rubbed raw where the hinges met the wood. 

They shuffled in and made their way toward the rooms, trunks balancing behind them on their brooms, hovering in wait. They paused, both of them, outside the large wooden door of the bedroom they had occupied together 30 years prior. Pippa glanced over at Hecate, gaze more cutting and contemplative than Hecate was ready for, and Hecate stared down at the floor, for a moment, gathering herself, memorizing the knots and knobs of the uneven wood panels. Her cheeks burned, a little, and her gait felt stilted and uneven, like she didn’t quite have her footing, yet, even now, despite having been off the brooms for at least ten minutes.

The silence stretched between them, thick and cloying, pulling and tugging until the tension lay hot and prickling across Hecate’s chest.

“I can take my parents’ room,” Pippa said, finally, her voice breaking the heaviness in the air like the sky after a rainstorm. “You can have the one here. If, if you don’t mind.”

Hecate released a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding, and nodded, once. 

Pippa shot Hecate a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and flicked a hand, sending her trunk to the room her parents usually slept in.

Hecate followed suit, her magic warm and grounding, the use of it tugging her back to the present.

A chessboard, presumably summoned, materialized in Pippa’s hands.

“Chess?” Pippa asked, voice still just a little too chipper, and Hecate nodded, relieved to have something to focus on, something to do, aside from fall into the dark recesses of her own head.

Pippa set up the board by the fire, and they did their best to settle into their usual rhythm, the gentle ebb and flow of conversation, the murmurs and disgruntled noises of ill-advised moves that they did at their schools.

But they  _ weren’t  _ at either of their schools, and Hecate soon realized that history, all of their soft touches and quick kisses and furtive, hushed whispers in the dark, hung all around them, hovering in the air like ghosts. 

Hecate wondered if Pippa remembered, if she knew.

But she must have, really.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?”

Hecate looked up sharply, not entirely sure of the weight of the words there. But Pippa was staring vaguely into the fire, flames dancing puzzle patterns across her cheeks, her fingers playing absently with the edges of one pink sleeve.

Hecate’s stomach dropped, her chest constricting just slightly, and she made sure her face was schooled into the sort of careful composure she usually reserved for her students before answering.

“I...yes, I do.”

Pippa frowned, just slightly, and Hecate glanced down at the board again before she could see the impatience growing, there, the disappointment etched in lines across Pippa’s face.

Hecate expected harshness, the full brunt of Pippa’s temper--scorching and blistering, even when they were children--lashing out in full force. But when Pippa spoke, it was in a soft half-whisper, and the quiet, placid tone of her words nearly broke Hecate in two.

“Is that all you remember?”

“I. Didn’t know that you were looking for more than that.”

Pippa’s eyes blazed, a little, the flicker flames burning embers in her vision. “I always was, Hiccup,” she said, her tone biting, now, and just a little acidic. “I was just too scared to say so. And I think,” she added, her voice wavering, a little, hovering just above a whisper, “That you were always just too scared to say so, too.”

Hecate did look up, then, her eyes widening a little despite herself, the vastness of Pippa’s words slowly sinking in.

And despite the ire in Pippa’s tone, despite the acidity and ice over the top of Pippa’s words, what she saw hovering under the surface of Pippa’s eyes was nothing short of pure sorrow, and pain, and heartbreak.

It took Hecate’s breath away.

_ Lips on cheeks on hair on lips… _

Hecate closed her eyes, drawing in breath, shakily, and she could sense Pippa pressing the board aside, moving in the space around her.

“What was it, Hecate?” came Pippa’s voice, somehow simultaneously smooth and rough at the same time, like custard left in the pot to curdle. Pippa was very very close, Hecate could tell, even with her eyes shut; could feel Pippa’s breath in bursts, leaving scorch marks across Hecate’s skin.

“What was it that made you...leave?” Pippa’s voice sounded again, her voice cracking on the last word, and Hecate’s heart gave an erratic jolt. 

Hecate’s tongue felt as though coated in sawdust, her throat itchy and raw.

“I…” she began, then stopped. She sucked in another breath. “I--told, you,” she said, in a voice not quite her own. “I didn’t want to. Hold you back. I--”

Pippa let out a soft, strange noise, like a strangled scoff. “That’s not all, Hecate, though, and you know that.”

Hecate’s ribs clenched tighter, tighter, the bones stretching and pulling until they cracked, harshly, in her chest. 

_ It was because I wanted to kiss you. _

Hecate dug one, two, three fingernails into the soft muscle of her thigh.

_ It was because I wanted to be with you. _

She breathed out sharply through her lips.

_ It was because I was terrible for you, disgusting, a mess of a witch, all wrong. _

“It was because I loved you.”

Slowly, slowly, Hecate opened her eyes.

Pippa sat, perfectly still, eyes open and tortured and so, so lost.

“If you loved me,” Pippa breathed, lips barely moving, wetness glinting off her cheeks in the fireflames, “Then why did you leave?”

She couldn’t do this,  _ wouldn’t  _ do this, wouldn’t ruin what they finally had, again, wouldn’t throw away all they had now built up--

“Because--” and she choked, the words caught, stuck on the edge of her tongue. Her chest was too tight, her lungs empty, her ribs squeezing, squeezing her heart slowly petrifying--

“Because. I. Still do,” she said, the words falling and breaking like ice in the over-warm air. “And I always will. And you. Deserve. More than. Than that. Than. Me.” She breathed out the last word on the wind, like a prayer.

Pippa closed her own eyes, now, and Hecate’s heart shattered shards in her chest. She was falling, falling, was stupid greedy--

“All gods, Hiccup,” Pippa, said, opening her eyes. Her voice was rougher than before, quieter, catching along the edges of the space stretch between them. “You...you…” she let out a half-sob, half-laugh, and Hecate drew back, nearly flinching.

Pippa let out a long, long breath. 

“No,” she said, forcefully, now, the full blaze of her eyes back once more. “No. You don’t  _ ever _ get to make that choice for me.”

Hecate swayed, a little in her seat.

“I...thought…”

And Pippa shook her head.

“Don’t you get it?”

Hecate’s breath caught, sharply, and Pippa reached out a hand to cup Hecate’s cheek. She tugged Hecate closer, until their foreheads touched, until she could feel Pippa’s breath blowing patterns across her lips.

“All I’ve ever wanted was you.”

And then Pippa’s lips closed the breath of space between them.

Pippa pulled back, eyes searching wandering the length of Hecate’s skin, of her cheeks, of her eyes. Their foreheads were still pressed together, Hecate’s skin tingling where they touched.

She closed her eyes, her heart thundering, crashing into the edges of her chest. Pippa threaded her fingers through Hecate’s hair.

“And now?” Hecate asked, in a voice that didn’t belong to her, in a voice not her own.

“Still you.”

And then they were kissing, moving closer, hands cupping cheeks, hooking around necks.

Then they were moving more--fingers dancing along ribcages, fingernails tugging through hair. 

And in the evening, finally, they carried on in this way: arms, hands, knees, shoulders; a head on a lap, fingers drawn carefully through hair.

And lips, pressed to skin.

It was in this way that they found themselves mercifully, finally, free.


End file.
